October 22, 2018

We love to write about Canadian politics, just not usually local Canadian politics. The Toronto election is becoming an exception.

We covered the 2014 election when the world wondered if the crack-smoking mayor would be replaced by the brother of the crack-smoking mayor. The 2010 election was of interest to us since we cancelled vacation plans to Toronto in 2009 over the ferries strike aka the 2009 City of Toronto inside and outside workers strike. The 2010 election would soon become relevant with the election of the soon-to-be crack-smoking mayor.

The 2018 Toronto municipal election is being held today to elect a mayor and councillors on the city council. The problem was that when the election started, there were 47 wards in Toronto. On Election Day 2018, there will be 25 wards.

Former Toronto City Councillor, brother of that crack-smoking mayor, and current Ontario Premier Doug Ford decided to shrink the Toronto City Council as one of his first decisions in all of Ontario. The election process had already begun; candidates were campaigning for positions on the council. The first judge who heard the case ruled against the premier. Ford decided to use the notwithstanding clause to override the judge. While the notwithstanding clause had been used sparingly in other provinces (mostly by Quebec on a purely symbolic basis), no Ontario premier had never used the clause.

While I might have learned about the notwithstanding clause years ago at university, I never really understood it. The following is an attempt to define the notwithstanding clause.

The legislature can override a judicial decision and therefore suspend the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Most rights can be voided but there are exceptions, such as democratic rights and language rights.

The 3-judge panel who heard the appeal ruled in favour of the Ford Government, cutting the size of the Toronto City Council without the government needing to implement the notwithstanding clause. Interfering in an election while the election is happening would seem to qualify as a democratic right but apparently not in Ontario.

The Toronto citizens also lose significant power in representation since the population for each ward almost doubles, creating difficulties for people to have their voices heard on the Toronto City Council. Since Chicago often gets compared to Toronto in terms of size, Chicago has 50 wards, twice as many as Toronto will have after today's elections.

Ford has threatened to use the notwithstanding clause in other cases where the government would disagree with judicial decisions. The consensus was that provincial premiers have the power to make microdecisions about city municipal elections. The question was whether they could do so during an actual election.

As for the actual mayoral election, John Tory is running for re-election as mayor. While there are 35 candidates for the position, there are 3 primary contenders.

Jennifer Keesmaat was the city's chief city planner under Doug Ford's brother, former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. Saron Gebresellassi is a human-rights lawyer and activist. Sarah Climenhaga is a safe-streets activist.

Olivia Chow, who placed third in the 2014 election, declined to run in 2018. Chow is the widow of Jack Layton and a former MP.

The last time the Progressive Conservatives were in charge in Ontario, Premier Mike Harris pushed through, against the wishes of the mayors of Toronto and North York, the amalgamation of Toronto with East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, and York in 1998. The idea was to save money, similar to the verbalized reason for Doug Ford to truncate the size of the Toronto City Council. Even though over 75% of voters rejected amalgamation in a municipal referendum, Harris overruled the voters.

The Ford base is in Etobicoke, not in what was originally the city of Toronto. So if Harris hadn’t pushed through the amalgamation of Toronto, Rob Ford never would have become mayor and Doug Ford never would have become premier. The ground game has been a long time coming for the Progressive Conservatives. Even with not being in power for 15 years, the Mike Harris decision against the will of the voters has had long-suffering damage to democracy in Ontario.